The expat businessman has said he is happy to co-operate with efforts to find out what ­happened to the three-year-old.

The British detectives will sit in on the question-and-answer sessions, to be conducted by Portuguese officers in Faro.

The interviews are the ­latest stage in the Yard’s multi-million pound Operation Grange, and will mark the start of a major week for Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann.

In a Lisbon court tomorrow, lawyers are expected to make their final speeches in a £1million libel action brought by the McCanns against former police chief Goncalo Amaral over claims he made in his 2008 book The Truth Of The Lie.

He headed the investigation into Madeleine’s disappearance from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve in 2007.

Allegations in the book led Mrs McCann to contemplate suicide as she struggled to cope with what she called the ex-police officer’s “smear campaign”.